Wednesday, June 5, 2013

It's Not Just a River

Denial, that is...

It's been a while since I felt I had anything worthwhile to write about.

After a busy early Spring with a half marathon2 10-milers, and a 10k PR,  I had convinced myself that me and running had gone the way of Ross and Rachel.


I convinced myself that I was mentally and physically worn out from a long winter of running and I just needed to back off of running for a little while.  That nagging pain that I first felt during the Tar Heel 10 Miler on the side of my foot was pushed way down in the back of my mind.

What was really happening was that I would run, my foot would hurt, I would take a week off for it to stop hurting and run again only to start the whole cycle over again.


I miss my training too, dailymile.


Eventually, I thought I had rested enough and had the whole thing kicked. The pain had dulled considerably and I had a perfectly lovely 6 mile run while I was in  my hometown of Philadelphia this past weekend.

I ran along the river and it was everything you want in a run. The weather was amazing, the scenery was new, my legs felt awesome. I thought about how I was running on the same route as my goal race for this fall (the Philly half marathon) and how my training was going to be great. My PR dreams are well within my reach. I ended at the Art Museum feeling amazing.



Mostly amazing. I hobbled back to my hotel with a throbbing pain in my foot that could no longer be ignored. This cycle has been going on for 6 weeks now with no improvement. I have big plans for the Fall and I really don't want to make things worse, so I came home from my trip and called the doctor.

I then hopped onto Google for some ill-advised self diagnosis. Based on the precise location of the pain, I was fairly convinced that I have a stress fracture of the 5th metatarsal.


Not my foot, but the arrow shows where my pain is.

After 2 x-rays, the doctor (whose bedside manner was seriously lacking) told me he had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that there was no sign of a stress fracture on my films. The bad news was he still thinks I have one. So he is schlepping me off to a sports medicine doctor who can not see me until next week. Until then I have strict orders not to run.





So I left the doctor's office with a sore foot and no answers. To say I am frustrated would be an understatement.  There are so many unanswered questions, but I am trying not to get ahead of myself here. Hopefully a different doctor can give me more answers. I just wish I didn't have to wait a week to get in there.

Until then, the elliptical and I will be getting pretty friendly....


4 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear this, Rose! Hope it isn't too serious and you can be back to running soon.

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  2. there is another test they can do its a bone something or other. Good luck at your appt this week! Miss your face!

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  3. You made me laugh with the Rachel and Ross comment. Is it possible that after all these years we still remember that?! lol I love Friends. :) Now, sorry to hear about your foot; not funny. Hopefully, it is easily treatable.

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